If the deadline to extend U.S. troop presence is not extended, then (if I’m to understand what the words mean) U.S. troops have to leave, as they’re planning on doing. How does that “complicate” anything? There’s a political problem in Iraq, in that most people don’t want U.S. troops to stay, and politicians there arestruggling with how to satisfy that public demand for ending the occupation. Some political leaders seem to want U.S. troops to stay in some form.

So the lead didn’t make much sense to me, but the fifth paragraph makes things a bit clearer:

A growing chorus of military strategists in Washington would like a deal allowing at least some continued U.S. military presence in Iraq. Amid the broad unrest across the Middle East, they say, a U.S. foothold in Iraq is critical to help ensure stability in that country and to keep Iran and other potential aggressors in check.

So the “complications” are that U.S. elites want to stay in Iraq, and Iraqis don’t want U.S. troops there.

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Activism Director and and Co-producer of CounterSpinPeter Hart is the activism director at FAIR. He writes for FAIR's magazine Extra! and is also a co-host and producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show CounterSpin. He is the author of The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (Seven Stories Press, 2003). Hart has been interviewed by a number of media outlets, including NBC Nightly News, Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and the Associated Press. He has also appeared on Showtime and in the movie Outfoxed. Follow Peter on Twitter at @peterfhart.

It’s far easier to get us into a mess than to get us out, don’t you think? W.’s administration had the power, backed by the military industrial complex (which these days includes the media), but Obama is up against it, even assuming he would like to get us out. The first thing the US did after invading Iraq is begin to build permanent military bases. There has never been the slightest intention to leave, and I don’t know if any one person, even the so-called “most powerful man in the world” has the power to change that. It’s too late to put that toothpaste back into the tube.

I disagree with you, Doug, when you say that the President couldn’t order the troops out of Iraq if he really wanted to. I think it’s more that he doesn’t really want to do it at all. That’s why we still have troops stationed in South Korea 50 years after the war, and troops stationed in Japan and Germany 55 years after that conflict ended, for just a few examples. Just imagine how our economy could rebound if we slashed ‘defense’ spending and quit our habit of serially invading other sovereign nations, even after accounting for the temporary rise in unemployment from bringing troops home and layoffs in the military/industrial complex.

Well, you might be right, Jeff, that a president can order troops home. But trying to figure out what a president “really” wants to do is an exercise in futility. Technically he probably has the power, and he might not like the idea of more people dying in a war that he escalated, but mostly I think the president has less power than people think he does. He is beholden to the powers that put him in office, and, as we all know, that wasn’t “the people.” We don’t live in a democracy. In any case it’s hard to tell how much Obama agrees with the military industrial system of which he is a significant part. It’s arguable that no one who would oppose their power would be electable, but I don’t know.

Of course you are right to say that our economy would bounce back wonderfully if we stopped building bombs and occupying foreign countries, etc. But it’s those who would lose money by ending war who are in charge. And they don’t want the economy to bounce back. The clear intention of the monied interests is to make the US into a third world country. As long as the money is flowing up they are quite content.

Doug and Jeff ,you two sound like you have been listening to the esteemed Dr Paul.Doug the president is the commander n chief.He can order anything he damn well pleases including a nuclear attack.That he does not order all troops home points to many things.But not to the authority to do so.

That last paragraph perfectly encapsulates the mind boggling arrogance and unthinking hypocrisy of the approach of Washington elites to the Middle East and the world generally. What country has attacked and invaded Iraq twice in the last 20 years? Not Iran, Turkey or Syria. In fact Iran has not waged any aggressive war for more than 300 years. The idea that any thinking person can make such absurd statements with a straight face just exposes how unqualified these so called experts are to make any decision about any area of foreign policy, major or minor.